Open your first business

In this tutorial you will read the town’s Wanted board, pick a market that has more demand than sellers, and open a business on a cleared parcel. It takes about ten minutes. You need a claim with at least 600 bd ft of lumber and one cleared parcel, so finish the first half of From a fresh claim to the deed first. Any time after your first few hauls will do, and the deed is not required.

Open the prototype’s standalone.html page and leave No waiting ticked in the sandbox test tools.

1. Find the Wanted board

Scroll below the map and the side panel until you reach the section headed Wanted in town. The top right shows the town’s size and its milestone, for example “8 settlers · Founding”. Below that is a line telling you when the next milestone arrives.

A new town starts with 8 settlers. One more arrives every 40 minutes, up to 60. Four milestones matter:

Settlers	Milestone	Markets that open
8 (start)	Founding	Saw filing, Freight hauling
15	A town of 15 settlers	Cedar shakes, Seedlings
30	A real town of 30	General goods
45	The steamboat stops here	Room and board

Locked markets show a grey chip such as “Opens at 15”.

2. Let the town grow

At the start every open market is crowded, because eight settlers do not need much. You have two ways to move forward.

You can wait. The first milestone is about 4 hours 40 minutes away.

Or you can click Grow timber 12 hours in the sandbox test tools. Despite the name, it moves the town clock too, so 18 more settlers arrive at once (26 in all). It also grows your timber, refills the mills and moves the Reserve. Click it once and check the board again.

3. Read a market card

Each unlocked market is a card. Take the Saw filing card from the recorded run, after one click on Grow timber 12 hours:

• The chip said Underserved. The other chips are Balanced and Crowded.
• “Wanted 6.5 a hour” means settlers wanted about six and a half saw filings every hour.
• “1 seller” counts the other settlers who already sell it.
• “42 bd ft a saw” is today’s price. It rises when demand beats supply and falls when sellers pile in.
• The next lines give the perk you get from owning one, and what it needs (cost of goods, a barn, a cabin or cedar logs).
• The button gives the cost and the hourly upkeep: 600 bd ft · 45/hr.

Underserved means the sellers cannot meet demand. Crowded means there are too many sellers for the demand. Balanced is in between.

4. Choose a market

Pick an underserved market you can afford. Check three things before you click.

First, can you pay? The cost comes out of your lumber at once, and the upkeep runs every hour whether you sell or not.

Second, does it have a requirement? Freight hauling needs a barn. Room and board needs a cabin. Cedar shakes need redcedar logs at your landing or mill, and without them the shed sells nothing and you still pay upkeep.

Third, does the perk help you? A filing shop files your own saws for free. A tree nursery makes your own replanting free. A teamster stable halves your hauling share to the town mills.

In the recorded run, Saw filing was the only underserved market, so that was the choice.

5. Select a cleared parcel

A business needs a cleared parcel with nothing on it. Click one on the map. It cannot be the landing, a river meadow parcel (A8 to C8), a building or standing timber. The button at the bottom of each market card changes from “Open a filing shop” to “Open a filing shop on B5”, naming your parcel. If you see “Select a cleared parcel to build on”, the parcel you picked will not do.

6. Open the business

Click the button. You should see:

• Lumber drop by the cost (600 for the filing shop).
• A small building drawn on the parcel, and a message at the bottom of the screen reading “Filing shop open for business”.
• The market card change to a line like “Your filing shop on B5 sells 3.3 an hour, netting +31 bd ft/hr after costs and 45 upkeep. Earned 0 so far.”

That last line is the one to watch. It shows what you sell each hour and what is left after upkeep and the cost of goods.

7. Let it run

Click Grow timber 12 hours again and look at the card. In the recorded run the town reached 44 settlers, a second seller had opened up, and the card read: “sells 4.0 an hour, netting +88 bd ft/hr… Earned 772 so far.”

Other settlers open businesses too. When a market is underserved, a competitor may arrive. When it is crowded, one may leave. Those changes are worked out in half-hour steps, and in practice they land when the game catches up after you have been away or after you press Grow timber 12 hours. In the recorded run a second seller appeared during the first catch-up and the chip flipped from Underserved to Balanced. Your income is not guaranteed.

You can also check the Merchant of the year tab under Leaderboards, which ranks you by what your businesses have earned.

What just happened

You found a gap between what the town wanted and what its sellers could supply, paid a one-off cost to fill it, and took an hourly income minus upkeep. The same pattern applies to every market on the board: freight, shakes, seedlings, general goods and boarding.

Business earnings do not count toward the deed. They add lumber to your balance.

Where next

Browse the how-to guides, starting with open a business. The numbers behind the board are in town and markets.